entreaties. There came a moment of supreme cowardice and passion; her
arms were around him and he forgot all but her, again and again repeating
that he loved none other, and would never, never marry her daughter. At
last he even sank so low as to pretend that he simply regarded that poor,
infirm creature with pity. His words of compassionate disdain for her
rival were like nectar to Eve, for they filled her with the blissful idea
that it was she herself who would ever remain beautiful in his eyes and
whom he would ever love. . . .
At last silence fell between them, like an inevitable reaction after such
a tempest of despair and passion. It disturbed Gerard. "Won't you drink
some tea?" he asked. "It is almost cold already."
She was not listening, however. To her the reaction had come in a
different form; and as though the inevitable explanation were only now
commencing, she began to speak in a sad and weary voice. "My dear Gerard,
you really cannot marry my daughter. In the first place it would be so
wrong, and then there is the question of your name, your position.
Forgive my frankness, but the fact is that everybody would say that you
had sold yourself--such a marriage would be a scandal for both your
family and mine."
As she spoke she took hold of his hands, like a mother seeking to prevent
her big son from committing some terrible blunder. And he listened to
her, with bowed head and averted eyes. She now evinced no anger, no
jealous rage; all such feelings seemed to have departed with the rapture
of her passion.
"Just think of what people would say," she continued. "I don't deceive
myself, I am fully aware that there is an abyss between your circle of
society and ours. It is all very well for us to be rich, but money simply
enlarges the gap. And it was all very fine for me to be converted, my
daughter is none the less 'the daughter of the Jewess,' as folks so often
say. Ah! my Gerard, I am so proud of you, that it would rend my heart to
see you lowered, degraded almost, by a marriage for money with a girl who
is deformed, who is unworthy of you and whom you could never love."
He raised his eyes and looked at her entreatingly, anxious as he was to
be spared such painful talk. "But haven't I sworn to you, that you are
the only one I love?" he said. "Haven't I sworn that I would never marry
her! It's all over. Don't let us torture ourselves any longer."
Their glances met and lingered on one another, instinct with all the
misery which they dared not express in words. Eve's face had suddenly
aged; her eyelids were red and swollen, and blotches marbled her
quivering cheeks, down which her tears again began to trickle. "My poor,
poor Gerard," said she, "how heavily I weigh on you. Oh! do not deny it!
I feel that I am an intolerable burden on your shoulders, an impediment
in your life, and that I shall bring irreparable disaster on you by my
obstinacy in wishing you to be mine alone."
He tried to speak, but she silenced him. "No, no, all is over between us.
I am growing ugly, all is ended. And besides, I shut off the future from
you. I can be of no help to you, whereas you bestow all on me. And yet
the time has come for you to assure yourself a position. At your age you
can't continue living without any certainty of the morrow, without a home
and hearth of your own; and it would be cowardly and cruel of me to set
myself up as an obstacle, and prevent you from ending your life happily,
as I should do if I clung to you and dragged you down with me."
Gazing at him through her tears she continued speaking in this fashion.
Like his mother she was well aware that he was weak and even sickly; and
she therefore dreamt of arranging a quiet life for him, a life of
tranquil happiness free from all fear of want. She loved him so fondly;
and possessed so much genuine kindness of heart that perhaps it might be
possible for her to rise even to renunciation and sacrifice. Moreover,
the very egotism born of her beauty suggested that it might be well for
her to think of retirement and not allow the autumn of her life to be
spoilt by torturing dramas. All this she said to him, treating him like a
child whose happiness she wished to ensure even at the price of her own;
and he, his eyes again lowered, listened without further protest, pleased
indeed to let her arrange a happy life for him.
Examining the situation from every aspect, she at last began to
recapitulate the points in favour of that abominable marriage, the
thought of which had so intensely distressed her. "It is certain," she
said, "that Camille would bring you all that I should like you to have.
With her, I need hardly say it, would come plenty, affluence. And as for
the rest, well, I do not wish to excuse myself or you, but I could name
twenty households in which there have been worse things. Besides, I was
wrong when I said that money opened a gap between people. On the
contrary, it draws them nearer together, it secures forgiveness for every
fault; so nobody would dare to blame you, there would only be jealous
ones around you, dazzled by your good fortune."
Gerard rose, apparently rebelling once more. "Surely," said he, "_you_
don't insist on my marrying your daughter?"
"Ah! no indeed! But I am sensible, and I tell you what I ought to tell
you. You must think it all over."
"I have done so already. It is you that I have loved, and that I love
still. What you say is impossible."
She smiled divinely, rose, and again embraced him. "How good and kind you
are, my Gerard. Ah! if you only knew how I love you, how I shall always
love you, whatever happens."
Then she again began to weep, and even he shed tears. Their good faith
was absolute; tender of heart as they were, they sought to delay the
painful wrenching and tried to hope for further happiness. But they were
conscious that the marriage was virtually an accomplished fact. Only
tears and words were left them, while life and destiny were marching on.
And if their emotion was so acute it was probably because they felt that
this was the last time they would meet as lovers. Still they strove to
retain the illusion that they were not exchanging their last farewell,
that their lips would some day meet again in a kiss of rapture.
Eve removed her arms from the young man's neck, and they both gazed round
the room, at the sofa, the table, the four chairs, and the little hissing
gas-stove. The moist, hot atmosphere was becoming quite oppressive.
"And so," said Gerard, "you won't drink a cup of tea?"
"No, it's so horrid here," she answered, while arranging her hair in
front of the looking-glass.
At that parting moment the mournfulness of this place, where she had
hoped to find such delightful memories, filled her with distress, which
was turning to positive anguish, when she suddenly heard an uproar of
gruff voices and heavy feet. People were hastening along the passage and
knocking at the doors. And, on darting to the window, she perceived a
number of policemen surrounding the chalet. At this the wildest ideas
assailed her. Had her daughter employed somebody to follow her? Did her
husband wish to divorce her so as to marry Silviane? The scandal would be
awful, and all her plans must crumble! She waited in dismay, white like a
ghost; while Gerard, also paling and quivering, begged her to be calm. At
last, when loud blows were dealt upon the door and a Commissary of Police
enjoined them to open it, they were obliged to do so. Ah! what a moment,
and what dismay and shame!
Meantime, for more than an hour, Pierre and Guillaume had been waiting
for the rain to cease. Seated in a corner of the glazed verandah they
talked in undertones of Barthes' painful affair, and ultimately decided
to ask Theophile Morin to dine with them on the following evening, and
inform his old friend that he must again go into exile.
"That is the best course," repeated Guillaume. "Morin is very fond of him
and will know how to break the news. I have no doubt too that he will go
with him as far as the frontier."
Pierre sadly looked at the falling rain. "Ah! what a choice," said he,
"to be ever driven to a foreign land under penalty of being thrust into
prison. Poor fellow! how awful it is to have never known a moment of
happiness and gaiety in one's life, to have devoted one's whole existence
to the idea of liberty, and to see it scoffed at and expire with
oneself!"
Then the priest paused, for he saw several policemen and keepers approach
the cafe and prowl round it. Having lost scent of the man they were
hunting, they had retraced their steps with the conviction no doubt that
he had sought refuge in the chalet. And in order that he might not again
escape them, they now took every precaution, exerted all their skill in
surrounding the place before venturing on a minute search. Covert fear
came upon Pierre and Guillaume when they noticed these proceedings. It
seemed to them that it must all be connected with the chase which they
had caught a glimpse of some time previously. Still, as they happened to
be in the chalet they might be called upon to give their names and
addresses. At this thought they glanced at one another, and almost made
up their minds to go off under the rain. But they realised that anything
like flight might only compromise them the more. So they waited; and all
at once there came a diversion, for two fresh customers entered the
establishment.
A victoria with its hood and apron raised had just drawn up outside the
door. The first to alight from it was a young, well-dressed man with a
bored expression of face. He was followed by a young woman who was
laughing merrily, as if much amused by the persistence of the downpour.
By way of jesting, indeed, she expressed her regret that she had not come
to the Bois on her bicycle, whereupon her companion retorted that to
drive about in a deluge appeared to him the height of idiocy.
"But we were bound to go somewhere, my dear fellow," she gaily answered.
"Why didn't you take me to see the maskers?"
"The maskers, indeed! No, no, my dear. I prefer the Bois, and even the
bottom of the lake, to them."
Then, as the couple entered the chalet, Pierre saw that the young woman
who made merry over the rain was little Princess Rosemonde, while her
companion, who regarded the mid-Lent festivities as horrible, and
bicycling as an utterly unaesthetic amusement, was handsome Hyacinthe
Duvillard. On the previous evening, while they were taking a cup of tea
together on their return from the Chamber of Horrors, the young man had
responded to the Princess's blandishments by declaring that the only form
of attachment he believed in was a mystic union of intellects and souls.
And as such a union could only be fittingly arrived at amidst the cold,
chaste snow, they had decided that they would start for Christiania on
the following Monday. Their chief regret was that by the time they
reached the fiords the worst part of the northern winter would be over.
They sat down in the cafe and ordered some kummel, but there was none,
said the waiter, so they had to content themselves with common anisette.
Then Hyacinthe, who had been a schoolfellow of Guillaume's sons,
recognised both him and Pierre; and leaning towards Rosemonde told her in
a whisper who the elder brother was.
Thereupon, with sudden enthusiasm, she sprang to her feet: "Guillaume
Froment, indeed! the great chemist!" And stepping forward with arm
outstretched, she continued: "Ah! monsieur, you must excuse me, but I
really must shake hands with you. I have so much admiration for you! You
have done such wonderful work in connection with explosives!" Then,
noticing the chemist's astonishment, she again burst into a laugh: "I am
the Princess de Harn, your brother Abbe Froment knows me, and I ought to
have asked him to introduce me. However, we have mutual friends, you and
I; for instance, Monsieur Janzen, a very distinguished man, as you are
aware. He was to have taken me to see you, for I am a modest disciple of
yours. Yes, I have given some attention to chemistry, oh! from pure zeal
for truth and in the hope of helping good causes, not otherwise. So you
will let me call on you--won't you?--directly I come back from
Christiania, where I am going with my young friend here, just to acquire
some experience of unknown emotions."
In this way she rattled on, never allowing the others an opportunity to
say a word. And she mingled one thing with another; her cosmopolitan
tastes, which had thrown her into Anarchism and the society of shady
adventurers; her new passion for mysticism and symbolism; her belief that
the ideal must triumph over base materialism; her taste for aesthetic
verse; and her dream of some unimagined rapture when Hyacinthe should
kiss her with his frigid lips in a realm of eternal snow.
All at once, however, she stopped short and again began to laugh. "Dear
me!" she exclaimed. "What are those policemen looking for here? Have they
come to arrest us? How amusing it would be!"
Police Commissary Dupot and detective Mondesir had just made up their
minds to search the cafe, as their men had hitherto failed to find Salvat
in any of the outbuildings. They were convinced that he was here. Dupot,
a thin, bald, short-sighted, spectacled little man, wore his usual
expression of boredom and weariness; but in reality he was very wide
awake and extremely courageous. He himself carried no weapons; but, as he
anticipated a most violent resistance, such as might be expected from a
trapped wolf, he advised Mondesir to have his revolver ready. From
considerations of hierarchical respect, however, the detective, who with
his snub nose and massive figure had much the appearance of a bull-dog,
was obliged to let his superior enter first.
From behind his spectacles the Commissary of Police quickly scrutinized
the four customers whom he found in the cafe: the lady, the priest, and
the two other men. And passing them in a disdainful way, he at once made
for the stairs, intending to inspect the upper floor. Thereupon the
waiter, frightened by the sudden intrusion of the police, lost his head
and stammered: "But there's a lady and gentleman upstairs in one of the
private rooms."
Dupot quietly pushed him aside. "A lady and gentleman, that's not what we
are looking for. . . . Come, make haste, open all the doors, you mustn't
leave a cupboard closed."
Then climbing to the upper floor, he and Mondesir explored in turn every
apartment and corner till they at last reached the room where Eve and
Gerard were together. Here the waiter was unable to admit them, as the
door was bolted inside. "Open the door!" he called through the keyhole,
"it isn't you that they want!"
At last the bolt was drawn back, and Dupot, without even venturing to
smile, allowed the trembling lady and gentleman to go downstairs, while
Mondesir, entering the room, looked under every article of furniture, and
even peeped into a little cupboard in order that no neglect might be
imputed to him.
Meantime, in the public room which they had to cross after descending the
stairs, Eve and Gerard experienced fresh emotion; for people whom they
knew were there, brought together by an extraordinary freak of chance.
Although Eve's face was hidden by a thick veil, her eyes met her son's
glance and she felt sure that he recognised her. What a fatality! He had
so long a tongue and told his sister everything! Then, as the Count, in
despair at such a scandal, hurried off with the Baroness to conduct her
through the pouring rain to her cab, they both distinctly heard little
Princess Rosemonde exclaim: "Why, that was Count de Quinsac! Who was the
lady, do you know?" And as Hyacinthe, greatly put out, returned no
answer, she insisted, saying: "Come, you must surely know her. Who was
she, eh?"
"Oh! nobody. Some woman or other," he ended by replying.
Pierre, who had understood the truth, turned his eyes away to hide his
embarrassment. But all at once the scene changed. At the very moment when
Commissary Dupot and detective Mondesir came downstairs again, after
vainly exploring the upper floor, a loud shout was raised outside,
followed by a noise of running and scrambling. Then Gascogne, the Chief
of the Detective Force, who had remained in the rear of the chalet,
continuing the search through the outbuildings, made his appearance,
pushing before him a bundle of rags and mud, which two policemen held on
either side. And this bundle was the man, the hunted man, who had just
been discovered in the coach-house, inside a staved cask, covered with
hay.
Ah! what a whoop of victory there was after that run of two hours'
duration, that frantic chase which had left them all breathless and
footsore! It had been the most exciting, the most savage of all sports--a
man hunt! They had caught the man at last, and they pushed him, they
dragged him, they belaboured him with blows. And he, the man, what a
sorry prey he looked! A wreck, wan and dirty from having spent the night
in a hole full of leaves, still soaked to his waist from having rushed
through a stream, drenched too by the rain, bespattered with mire, his
coat and trousers in tatters, his cap a mere shred, his legs and hands
bleeding from his terrible rush through thickets bristling with brambles
and nettles. There no longer seemed anything human about his face; his
hair stuck to his moist temples, his bloodshot eyes protruded from their
sockets; fright, rage, and suffering were all blended on his wasted,
contracted face. Still it was he, the man, the quarry, and they gave him
another push, and he sank on one of the tables of the little cafe, still
held and shaken, however, by the rough hands of the policemen.
Then Guillaume shuddered as if thunderstruck, and caught hold of Pierre's
hand. At this the priest, who was looking on, suddenly understood the
truth and also quivered. Salvat! the man was Salvat! It was Salvat whom
they had seen rushing through the wood like a wild boar forced by the
hounds. And it was Salvat who was there, now conquered and simply a
filthy bundle. Then once more there came to Pierre, amidst his anguish, a
vision of the errand girl lying yonder at the entrance of the Duvillard
mansion, the pretty fair-haired girl whom the bomb had ripped and killed!
Dupot and Mondesir made haste to participate in Gascogne's triumph. To
tell the truth, however, the man had offered no resistance; it was like a
lamb that he had let the police lay hold of him. And since he had been in
the cafe, still roughly handled, he had simply cast a weary and mournful
glance around him.
At last he spoke, and the first words uttered by his hoarse, gasping
voice were these: "I am hungry."
He was sinking with hunger and weariness. This was the third day that he
had eaten nothing.
"Give him some bread," said Commissary Dupot to the waiter. "He can eat
it while a cab is being fetched."
A policeman went off to find a vehicle. The rain had suddenly ceased
falling, the clear ring of a bicyclist's bell was heard in the distance,
some carriages drove by, and under the pale sunrays life again came back
to the Bois.
Meantime, Salvat had fallen gluttonously upon the hunk of bread which had
been given him, and whilst he was devouring it with rapturous animal
satisfaction, he perceived the four customers seated around. He seemed
irritated by the sight of Hyacinthe and Rosemonde, whose faces expressed
the mingled anxiety and delight they felt at thus witnessing the arrest
of some bandit or other. But all at once his mournful, bloodshot eyes
wavered, for to his intense surprise he had recognised Pierre and
Guillaume. When he again looked at the latter it was with the submissive
affection of a grateful dog, and as if he were once more promising that
he would divulge nothing, whatever might happen.
At last he again spoke, as if addressing himself like a man of courage,
both to Guillaume, from whom he had averted his eyes, and to others also,
his comrades who were not there: "It was silly of me to run," said he. "I
don't know why I did so. It's best that it should be all ended. I'm
ready."
V
THE GAME OF POLITICS
ON reading the newspapers on the following morning Pierre and Guillaume
were greatly surprised at not finding in them the sensational accounts of
Salvat's arrest which they had expected. All they could discover was a
brief paragraph in a column of general news, setting forth that some
policemen on duty in the Bois de Boulogne had there arrested an
Anarchist, who was believed to have played a part in certain recent
occurrences. On the other hand, the papers gave a deal of space to the
questions raised by Sagnier's fresh denunciations. There were innumerable
articles on the African Railways scandal, and the great debate which
might be expected at the Chamber of Deputies, should Mege, the Socialist
member, really renew his interpellation, as he had announced his
intention of doing.
As Guillaume's wrist was now fast healing, and nothing seemed to threaten
him, he had already, on the previous evening, decided that he would
return to Montmartre. The police had passed him by without apparently
suspecting any responsibility on his part; and he was convinced that
Salvat would keep silent. Pierre, however, begged him to wait a little
longer, at any rate until the prisoner should have been interrogated by
the investigating magistrate, by which time they would be able to judge
the situation more clearly. Pierre, moreover, during his long stay at the
Home Department on the previous morning, had caught a glimpse of certain
things and overheard certain words which made him suspect some dim
connection between Salvat's crime and the parliamentary crisis; and he
therefore desired a settlement of the latter before Guillaume returned to
his wonted life.
"Just listen," he said to his brother. "I am going to Morin's to ask him
to come and dine here this evening, for it is absolutely necessary that
Barthes should be warned of the fresh blow which is falling on him. And
then I think I shall go to the Chamber, as I want to know what takes
place there. After that, since you desire it, I will let you go back to
your own home."
It was not more than half-past one when Pierre reached the
Palais-Bourbon. It had occurred to him that Fonsegue would be able to
secure him admittance to the meeting-hall, but in the vestibule he met
General de Bozonnet, who happened to possess a couple of tickets. A
friend of his, who was to have accompanied him, had, at the last moment,
been unable to come. So widespread was the curiosity concerning the
debate now near at hand, and so general were the predictions that it
would prove a most exciting one, that the demand for tickets had been
extremely keen during the last twenty-four hours. In fact Pierre would
never have been able to obtain admittance if the General had not
good-naturedly offered to take him in. As a matter of fact the old
warrior was well pleased to have somebody to chat with. He explained that
he had simply come there to kill time, just as he might have killed it at
a concert or a charity bazaar. However, like the ex-Legitimist and
Bonapartist that he was, he had really come for the pleasure of feasting
his eyes on the shameful spectacle of parliamentary ignominy.
When the General and Pierre had climbed the stairs, they were able to
secure two front seats in one of the public galleries. Little Massot, who
was already there, and who knew them both, placed one of them on his
right and the other on his left. "I couldn't find a decent seat left in
the press gallery," said he, "but I managed to get this place, from which
I shall be able to see things properly. It will certainly be a big
sitting. Just look at the number of people there are on every side!"